


Normal in Training

by onhisleft



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Memes, Service Dogs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-07-12 14:52:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7109989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onhisleft/pseuds/onhisleft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After his traumatic experience at Baltimore Hospital for the Criminally Insane, Will moves to Oregon and opens a shelter for stray dogs. A visit from Alana might threaten the new normal that he's found for himself. Warning for semi-graphic description of a crime scene.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Normal in Training

**Author's Note:**

> i love hannibal*  
> *i love the self-indulgent version of hannibal where will is ok

When Alana Bloom steps in the door, Will is bent over, adjusting the straps on a corgi’s wheelchair; eager to get moving again, it wags its stump legs and stubby tail. When the bell on the door rings, he gives a jolt and lets the straps go. The dog skitters away as Will stands up.

There’s a flash of fear in his eyes before they glaze over; she could only imagine what her face was associated with in his mind. It takes a good few seconds before either of them could think of anything to say.

“You here to lock me up for something?” he was clearly trying to joke, but the laugh was practically coughed out. Alana’s throat closes.

“Will… it’s been a while.” she offers him a smile. She notices that the wrinkles that had formed under his eyes had nearly faded, but they were accentuated in the tight frown he was wearing.

“Yeah. It has.” And for good reason, she thought. He fiddles with the sleeve of his plaid shirt. “Do you need something?”

“I want to know how you’ve been.”

“Fine.”

She looks around - the first things she notices are the dogs. They’re everywhere, in every size, shape, and color you can imagine. They’ve busied themselves with eating, sleeping, playfully fighting with each other. Toys and dog beds litter the floor. There’s a pile of kennels at the back wall, all opened. Will clearly doesn’t have a runaway issue, because the dogs are running freely around the room, save for the dog fence wrapped around his desk. There’s a door to an outside area wide open. The only evidence of human life in the room are Will’s desk and the door to the backroom. There’s a radio barely visible over the paperwork on his desk, playing music so soft she knows he’s not listening.

“You look like you’re doing well,” she remarks.

“Built this myself.” he struggles to make eye contact, but the excitement is starting to glimmer through. “Well, parts of it.”

“The dogs look very happy.” What she wants to say is that he looks happy - even now, uncomfortable in her presence, he stops to scratch a dog’s ear and offers it a small grin. His dark circles, his grey hairs, his posture - he looks what most people would call normal.

“They’re all up for adoption.” A chihuahua starts to yap aggressively at Alana’s ankles before retreating behind Will; she chuckles.

“Gigi’s aggressive. She has trouble trusting people. When a dog’s been abused, they can have trouble learning to live with humans again.”

“Alright, I get it. You’re not happy to see me.”

“I - sorry,” he mumbles, eyes on the floor. “So what are you really here for?”

“I hesitate to ask this. I wasn’t my idea, I promise, but… we need your help again. They thought you’d listen to me more.”

“You mean Crawford?” he tenses a little more. 

“No. I’m trying to make sure he isn’t there. If you accept. If you want, I’ll leave too.”

“No, that’s - sit down. Do you, uh… want a drink or anything?” he retreats behind his desk.

“That’s fine.” she takes a seat. A beagle sets its front legs in her lap, looking for attention. She smiles and scratches its head. “You might know the killer we’re looking for.”

“The boater?” he says, half paying attention. He’s busy grabbing a blank piece of paper and a pen from the mess. On a stool behind the desk, a pit bull mix with a collar is fast asleep.

“Yes. Do you know anything else?”

“I’ve been avoiding that kind of thing, actually.” he admits.

“That’s fine… I just. Want to be sure you’re okay with this.”

“Not sure yet.” He’s playing with the pen absentmindedly.

“Okay… I’m just going to repeat that I don’t think this is a good idea before I continue.”

“Then maybe you should leave,” he mutters under his breath.

“I made a promise that I would bring someone back.” She can see Will’s leg shaking under the desk.

“I…” Suddenly, the mix on the stool leaps off and wraps himself around the shaking leg until it stops. The dog looks up at Will expectantly, and he hesitantly pats it’s head.

“This a stray?” she asks.

“This is Buffalo. My, uh... psychiatric service dog.” Buffalo refuses to leave Will’s side, eyes on the move for potential threats to his charge. “A trainer and I nearby trained him ourselves.”

“Those are really useful.”

“He was a stray, before. The trainer said we’re healing each other.” He gives Buffalo a soft smile, and he goes back to sleep on the ground near Will’s foot.

“If you were to come back to the Academy with me, Buffalo would be allowed to come as well.”

“That would be nice.” She senses something akin to relief. “So tell me about the killer.”

\---

The airport is an obstacle course for Will, and he struggles to keep his head straight even while sitting down waiting for their flight. It will be a long one, from Oregon to Minnesota, and his eyes are darting back and forth around the room. Alana senses this, but the true professional is Buffalo, who is dressed up in his service vest today. She’s secured clearance for the dog on the flight. He’s currently busying himself with keeping an eye on Will.

Suddenly, he pulls out his phone. He scrolls for a few minutes in silence before letting out a soft chuckle, nearly giving Alana a heart attack. “Have you seen this?” he passes her the phone, beaming. It’s a meme of a dog wearing a tie, with the caption written on the top of the picture: “Why can’t I go to work with you?” She snorts in response.

“So tell me. What else have you been doing in Oregon?”

“Oh, you know.” He stops to think, as if he forgot what he’s been doing. “I have a boat, and sometimes I go fishing in the lake nearby. There’s a creek for fly fishing. Only one other person works for me, so I don’t really leave work much.”

“Do you get into town much?” her eyebrows crease.

“It’s not that bad. The people are nice here. They don’t know about me.” He’s absentmindedly rubbing Buffalo as he talks. “How’s the FBI?”

“Not much has changed in the past couple of years.” Her face hardens slightly. “I’ve been thinking about moving.”

“I wouldn’t blame you. There’s a lot of nice real estate in Oregon.” A child, 6 or 7, wanders away from his parents and approaches them.

“Hey, can I pet your dog?” he asks.

“Sorry, but he’s working right now.” Will offers the kid a smile, but it’s plastic.

He stares at Buffalo in childlike amazement. “I wish I could bring my dog on the plane.”

Will looks back to the floor. “No, you don’t.”

Alana jumps in and tries to do damage control. “Hey, can I help you find your parents?” She leads the kid away from Will, and he exhales as soon as they’re out of sight. Buffalo wags his tail worriedly and reaches his front legs onto Will’s lap. A tired but loving smile breaks through.

\---

Will gets to his hotel just after 2 AM, but he only has a few hours of rest before it’s time to get to work. Alana meets him at the room where Continental Breakfast is being served; he arrives a few minutes late, looking tired and irritable. Buffalo is on duty, and it almost looks like he’s pushing Will aggressively towards the food. He grabs a bagel and a cup of coffee and sits himself across from Alana.

“We’ll be visiting the crime scene first. Is that going to be alright?”

“Yeah, that’s fine,” he says between bites. “I finished looking at the file you gave me on the plane.”

“Most of what was there at the discovery has been preserved. We’ve done everything we can, but there’s also pictures if necessary.”

“I’ll use my imagination,” He puffs out hot air.

“Is there anything else I can do to make this easier for you?”

“Will… will Crawford be there?” 

“Not if you don’t want him to be.”

“No, no. He can be there. I’d feel bad telling him to leave. That’s all his domain.” The bagel is gone; Alana notices that Will eats like it’s going to be taken from him at any second. The pace he’s consuming his coffee at must be scalding his tongue.

“He just wants this to work.”

“I understand,” he downs the last of the coffee and stands to get rid of the mug. Buffalo waits patiently at the table and looks straight up at Alana.

“Do you see me as a threat?” The dog, curious, cocks his head to the right. “I wouldn’t blame you.”

\---

A grown man is sitting in a high chair, his thick legs barely squeezed through the holes. His head and beard have been shaved clean by a skilled hand. The man wears a diaper that looks full. The rest of his clothes have been removed from the scene. His head rests against the table of the high chair, his eyes closed in a way that makes the death look almost peaceful. 

“Death by injection. The wound has been covered by a Band-Aid on the inside of the right thigh.” Will mutters to himself. Alana was right; the body was remarkably well preserved.

“This is the third body we’ve found like… this.” Crawford is suddenly there, gesturing to the body. “It’s nice to see you again, Will.”

Will responds with silence, which says enough. He takes another step towards the body and away from him. “All of the victims were criminals?”

“Yes, from the same penitentiary nearby.”

“Were the bodies preserved exactly like this?”

“The first was lying on the ground. The second was in a crib. The body’s legs were both broken. This one actually has traces of baby food in the mouth. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

“Alright.” He stops to think and then repeats himself, “Alright.” Buffalo looks tentative to get any closer, and lags behind as Will takes a closer look. Suddenly, Will turns to Crawford and nods. “I think I can do this.”

“We appreciate your help.” he gives him a smile, but it’s unrequited. He turns and yells, “EVERYONE OUT!” and the room is vacant except for Will and Buffalo in seconds.

One swing of the metronome and the high chair is gone, the body discarded on the ground. One swing and darkness. One swing and the man is in the high chair again, bound and gagged.

Will steps forward coyly. “In my left hand is a syringe full of potassium chloride. In my right is a spoon of Gerber’s baby food.” A few more steps and he and the man are face to face. He’s screaming - it might be words, but it’s hard to tell with the washcloth in his mouth. Will removes it and replaces it with a spoonful of strained peas.

“I’m going to return him to the womb. His sins, the ones that had locked him away, will be his saving grace. I have chosen him.”

The man is desperately trying to spit the food out, but Will is already shoving the washcloth back in. All of his clothes have been removed.

“I will feed and swaddle him. His innocence will return.” Will grabs the right thigh, using his other hand to push the man’s penis out of the way, and shoves the needle in. It only takes seconds for the man’s heart to fail, and he falls back with his eyes and mouth open, head resting against the back of the high chair. Will steps back to admire his work.

“I have killed, and yet.” 

Will stops.

This isn’t him. 

“I - killed -” he tries to gasp for air, but he suddenly feels underwater. The man in the high chair is no longer the man in the high chair - he is whispering. “See…”

Will screams and hits the ground. He tries to shuffle backwards, but his back hits the wall too soon. As he turns, the wall is a wall of dark, matted fur - his back has connected with the leg of the stag. It looks down.

“I didn’t -” he wails, but they know the truth. He’s in the corner, and the man in the high chair pulls the trigger, shooting him in the neck. His eyes roll into the back of his head and he’s gasping louder, and there isn’t any blood, and this is the crime scene, and the man in the high chair is dead, and Garrett Jacob Hobbs is dead, and even as his vision is reduced to blurred images he can see the room fade back into reality.

Buffalo springs onto Will and pushes him onto his side in a recovery position. As fast as he can run, he’s out the door and barking, bringing Crawford and Alana behind him.

“Oh my god…” she can feel the breath leaving her body. “I’m calling 911-”

“Wait!” Crawford snaps. He leaves the room and returns with a paramedic; Alana realizes Crawford must have been expecting this to happen. The paramedic starts to kneel down to Will’s level, but Will scoots back and howls in fear. Buffalo pushes through the crowd of people and puts pressure on Will’s body. Slowly, his eyes roll back into place and his breathing slows. Tears begin to roll down his face as he tries to sit himself up, but can’t. Suddenly, he jerks up and Buffalo runs to get underneath to soften the blow when he falls. It helps Buffalo get him against the wall and then curl up on his lap, providing pressure to his legs.

Will is sucking in air like crazy. Buffalo licks the tears off his face.

“I knew we shouldn’t have done this,” Alana curses. But that doesn’t change what they’ve done to Will - he’s swimming against the tide, even with his paddle.

\---

It’s late. When Alana comes to the hotel to check on Will, he’s sitting at the table where they ate breakfast this morning, lost in thought. Buffalo is at his heels, whining.

Alana approaches and waves a hand in front of his face, but he makes no clear sign that he saw. She sits on the other side of the table and waits patiently.

“Sometimes I wonder if I’m still there.”

She doesn’t speak for a while. “In the hospital?”

“Yeah.” he affirms. “Last time I saw you and Crawford, you were both convinced I was an intelligent psychopath. You thought I was a manipulator.”

“We changed our minds, Will. We made a mistake and I’m sorry.”

“S-so then why am I here?” His voice breaks, his cheeks redden. “Why did I come back?” When he starts shaking, Buffalo becomes more visibly irritated.

“I want to be able to answer that for you.” She can’t stand to look him in the eye, so she turns away. “Maybe you should go home.”

“Where is that? A mental institution? Wolf Trap? Will I find the old dogs?”

“We’d tried to track you for weeks.”

“Why were you looking for me?” His voice raises, and it’s getting harder to keep himself from crying. “For answers?”

She buries her head in her hands. “There was a part of me, even then, that wanted to know that you were safe.”

“I still see him in my nightmares. I couldn’t get his smell out of my clothes, so I threw them all away. I’m a vegetarian now, when I can bring myself to eat. I don’t even know if I’m safe now. I-”

“I don’t -”

“I’m scared.” he admits. His fists are locked in front of him, and he can feel chains lurking like phantom limbs on his wrists. “I think I want to go home.”

Alana sucks in a sharp breath, and then releases. “Then it’s my job to get you there. I’ll book the flight.”

Will rubs his head. His sudden migraine enters like an old friend. He almost reaches in his pocket for the Aspirin he doesn’t carry around anymore. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay… I’m sorry.”

He looks her square in the face for the first time since she walked into the shelter. “Then we’re even.”

\---

When Will wakes up, he realizes that the route to the airport must be longer than he thought it was. He had to have been asleep against the window of Alana’s car for at least half an hour. They’re on a back road that he doesn’t recognize.

“Where are we?” he asks, groggy. He wipes the sleep at his eyes.

“I wanted to show you something… if that’s alright.”

“Okay…” He sits up in the seat, rubbing a hand through his hair.

After a while longer, they pull into the driveway of Alana’s house. They both get out of the car; she gives him a finger to wait and disappears inside. In a few minutes, the door swings open and out come dogs - Will’s dogs. As soon as they catch a sniff of him, they’re all running.

“Oh - my god -” Will starts laughing and he can’t stop. He gets down to the dogs’s level and pets them all. He doesn’t even notice when Alana approaches.

“I couldn’t bear to give them up.” She, herself, gets down and rubs one of their heads. When she looks up, she can see Buffalo pawing against the window of her car’s back seat. “Are you gonna let him out?”

Will, unbothered by his forgetfulness in the face of pure bliss, runs and lets Buffalo go wild. It’s not long before Will is on the ground and covered from head to toe in dog hair. “I can’t believe it…”

“They’re yours, if you want them.”

He stops.

“I don’t… I’m not sure if I could give them the home they want anymore.”

“I think the home they want is with you.” When he doesn’t respond, she continues. “I’ve fallen in love with these dogs. They’ve given me a reason to wake up in the morning a lot of days.”

“Would you want to keep them?” 

“I… if that’s what you want, then I would.”

He’s sitting on the grass, rubbing Winston slowly and methodically, when he says, “They love you. All of them.”

I love them too, she thinks, joining him on the grass, a family of strays surrounding them until they both join the ranks. And when the profiles and murders fall away and are forgotten, it’s what they are - a family of strays. Neither of them mind.


End file.
